The supper is over; the company dwindle away, into the early dusk. ‘Perhaps sooner than you would have liked?’ he says, to Bonvisi.‘Thomas More is my old friend. You should not come here and bait him.’‘Oh, have I spoiled your party? You invited Monmouth; was that not to bait him?’‘No, Humphrey Monmouth is my friend too.’‘And I?’‘Of course.’They have slid back naturally into Italian. ‘Tell me something that intrigues me,’ he says. ‘I want to know about Thomas Wyatt.’ Wyatt went to Italy, having attached himself to a diplomatic mission, rather suddenly: three years ago now. He had a disastrous time there, but that's for another evening; the question is, why did he run away from the English court in such haste?‘Ah. Wyatt and Lady Anne,’ Bonvisi says. ‘An old story, I'd have thought?’Well, perhaps, he says, but he tells him about the boy Mark, the musician, who seems sure Wyatt's had her; if the story's bouncing around Europe, among servants and menials, what are the odds the king hasn't heard?‘A part of the art of ruling, I suppose, is to know when to shut your ears. And Wyatt is handsome,’ Bonvisi says, ‘in the English style, of course. He is tall, he is blond, my countrymen marvel at him; where do you breed such people? And so assured, of course. And a poet!’He laughs at his friend because, like all the Italians, he can't say ‘Wyatt’: it comes out ‘Guiett’, or something like that. There was a man called Hawkwood, a knight of Essex, used to rape and burn and murder in Italy, in the days of chivalry; the Italians called him Acuto, The Needle.‘Yes, but Anne …’ He senses, from his glimpses of her, that she is unlikely to be moved by anything so impermanent as beauty. ‘These few years she has needed a husband, more than anything: a name, an establishment, a place from which she can stand and negotiate with the king. Now, Wyatt's married. What could he offer her?’‘Verses?’ says the merchant. ‘It wasn't diplomacy took him out of England. It was that she was torturing him. He no longer dared be in the same room with her. The same castle. The same country.’ He shakes his head. ‘Aren't the English odd?’‘Christ, aren't they?’ he says.‘You must take care. The Lady's family, they are pushing a little against the limit of what can be done. They are saying, why wait for the Pope? Can we not make a marriage contract without him?’‘It would seem to be the way forward.’‘Try one of these sugared almonds.’He smiles. Bonvisi says, ‘Tommaso, I may give you some advice? The cardinal is finished.’‘Don't be so sure.’‘Yes, and if you did not love him, you would know it was true.’‘The cardinal has been nothing but good to me.’‘But he must go north.’‘The world will chase him. You ask the ambassadors. Ask Chapuys. Ask them who they report to. We have them at Esher, at Richmond. Toujours les dépêches. That's us.’‘But that is what he is accused of! Running a country within the country!’He sighs. ‘I know.’‘And what will you do about it?’‘Ask him to be more humble?’Bonvisi laughs. ‘Ah, Thomas. Please, you know when he goes north you will be a man without a master. That is the point. You are seeing the king, but it is only for now, while he works out how to give the cardinal a pay-off that will keep him quiet. But then?’He hesitates. ‘The king likes me.’‘The king is an inconstant lover.’‘Not to Anne.’‘That is where I must warn you. Oh, not because of Guiett … not because of any gossip, any light thing said … but because it must all end soon … she will give way, she is just a woman … think how foolish a man would have been if he had linked his fortunes to those of the Lady's sister, who came before her.’‘Yes, just think.’He looks around the room. That's where the Lord Chancellor sat. On his left, the hungry merchants. On his right, the new ambassador. There, Humphrey Monmouth the heretic. There, Antonio Bonvisi. Here, Thomas Cromwell. And there are ghostly places set, for the Duke of Suffolk large and bland, for Norfolk jangling his holy medals and shouting ‘By the Mass!’ There is a place set for the king, and for the doughty little queen, famished in this penitential season, her belly quaking inside the stout armour of her robes. There is a place set for Lady Anne, glancing around with her restless black eyes, eating nothing, missing nothing, tugging at the pearls around her little neck. There is a place for William Tyndale, and one for the Pope; Clement looks at the candied quinces, too coarsely cut, and his Medici lip curls. And there sits Brother Martin Luther, greasy and fat: glowering at them all, and spitting out his fishbones.A servant comes in. ‘Two young gentlemen are outside, master, asking for you by name.’He looks up. ‘Yes?’‘Master Richard Cromwell and Master Rafe. With servants from your household, waiting to take you home.’He understands that the whole purpose of the evening has been to warn him: to warn him off. He will remember it, the fatal placement: if it proves fatal. That soft hiss and whisper, of stone destroying itself; that distant sound of walls sliding, of plaster crumbling, of rubble crashing on to fragile human skulls? That is the sound of the roof of Christendom, falling on the people below.Bonvisi says, ‘You have a private army, Tommaso. I suppose you have to watch your back.’‘You know I do.’ His glance sweeps the room: one last look. ‘Good night. It was a good supper. I liked the eels. Will you send your cook to see mine? I have a new sauce to brighten the season. One needs mace and ginger, some dried mint leaves chopped –’His friend says, ‘I beg of you. I implore you to be careful.’‘– a little, but a very little garlic –’‘Wherever you dine next, pray do not –’‘– and of breadcrumbs, a scant handful …’‘– sit down with the Boleyns.’
II
Entirely Beloved Cromwell
Spring–December 1530